London E1

Jimmy Wilson lives in London's East End, his father tends a barrow in Brick Lane, his mother takes in washing. We meet Jimmy playing in the streets as an eleven year old and again, after the war, twelve years later. Throughout the period, he is infatuated with Pinkie, a mixed-race girl whose mother lives with "the Indians," then starting to movie into the Brick Lane area as Jews move out. For Jimmy, Pinkie symbolises a new world where he can improve himself, wear better clothes, get a decent job.

This is London's East End in the 1940s --- polyglot, violent, poor, yet vibrant. We visit "the local", an all-day wedding feast and experience the Blitz, Jimmy survives the war, but despair awaits when even his father steals from him. And how will Pinkie get on in these changing times?